Wordle Bulletin – Wordle #443 (September 5, 2022)
Caveat: I am not to be confused with WordleGuru. I am under my guru’s tutelage.
I am an average player. My average “#of guesses required to solve a puzzle” score is pretty similar to that of New York Times’ WordleBot.
WordleGuru Grid
Wordle #443; September 5, 2022
Overall Summary: A difficult one, due to 1) not a very common word and 2) a duplicated vowel (OO).
Difficulty (Easy, Medium, Difficult): Difficult. WordleBot score – 4.2
Not a very common word and has duplicated vowel (OO).
Structure: Consistent with the most frequent construct (i.e., >50% frequency) – 2 vowels (though the frequency of the same vowel side by side is low); one Compound consonant (WH); O is the most frequent letter in the 3rd position.
Quality of the seed word: Effective, even though it didn’t reveal any of the five letters (A, L, E, R and T). The fact that these five letters are missing is critical to know.
Quality of the second word: It is the 2nd word in the ALERT/COINS/PUDGY triad. It revealed only one letter and that too not in the right position. Similar to the seed word, the absence of the letters C, I, N and S is worth knowing.
Combination of the first 2 words: Extremely effective since they eliminated all but 6 possible solutions (see below).
Possible Solutions: There are 6 possible solutions – BUXOM, JUMBO, DUMBO, GUMBO, WHOOP and WHOMP, WHOMP is not a “very common” word, so it gets scratched. We are left with 5.
Eliminate-not-Enumerate strategy: I could not come up with a word that would eliminate 4 of the 5 and give me the answer. WordleGod likes to use constructs such as JUMBO, DUMBO, and GUMBO where only one letter changes. My gut feel told me that BUXOM is unlikely to be the target word. It is not a word that is frequently used. So, I had to find a word that would eliminate 3 of the 4 from the following list – JUMBO, DUMBO, GUMBO and WHOOP.
I used JUDGE as the elimination word after a lot of deliberation. The letters J, D, and G are the beginning letters of the words JUMBO, DUMBO and GUMBO.
Final Thoughts: Time to thank LadyLuck again. My gutfeel about BUXOM was proven right.
© 2022 Ashok Gupta All rights reserved.
Wordle and WordleBot are trademarks owned by the New York Times.
The WordleBot score I refer to comes from Tom’s Guide by Marc McLaren. Marc writes his post at around 7 AM U.K. time.
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/what-is-todays-wordle-answer#section-previous-wordle-answers